In a technical sense, I was in a similar situation. My solution?
Use the bank’s online bill pay to send the dinosaur company a check… except list the address as mine. I get the check mailed to me from the bank; I mail the check off to the dinosaur company.
I’ve had to make sub-$5 tax payments before, and I’ve always wondered how much it takes the state to process that check. Someone has to open the envelope, seperate the check, endorse it, transfer it to a bank, and record the transation. Can they really do that for a couple of dollars? I’ve happily approve allowing the government to forgive any taxes owed for under $10.
I did this with last month’s cable bill.
I have been having billing problems with them for several months (the condo association has an agreement with the cable guys, and the cable guys changed their billing plans without agreeing to the previous deal the condo association has, so many folks got their bills fouled up. If you’re not hip to it, you will be overcharged).
Trying to stay vigilant, I have been battling the bills for about three months now. I haven’t paid any penalties or anything so far, but the extra charges keep showing up and I have to call them to dispute. So far I have won every time without raising my voice. It just takes a while to find somebody at the cable company with two working brain cells.
Last month, I disputed a $5 service charge. The agent agreed to strike it from my bill, as it was not needed. This brought my bill down to $0.98. The website won’t take credit card payments in amounts less than $1. So what do I do? The service person said “just don’t pay it; you won’t get a late fee. It will just roll over to your next bill.”
Believe you me, I’ll be watching for this to hit the fan.
Yeah, but they’re an order of magnitude smaller than ordering a whole box of checks that you have no other use for. You can get a money order for something like a buck twenty at the post office, where you can also buy a pre-stamped envelope for something like seventy-five cents. One trip, two bucks, and you’re done.